About – NGO

Integrated Sustainable Development Council

Make a Donation

We Make a Difference in their Life

We help poor people to break the cycle of poverty through education, build healthcare systems in remote areas to help poor people to stay healthier.

Help the people

Our goal is to work on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals through holistic interventions

Give Education to Kids

EDUCATION

Our education centres provide supplementary classes focused on learning outcomes amongst children in rural communities. Despite high enrolment rates, research has highlighted that hardly any children are able to read and write at a grade appropriate level. Our intervention seeks to remedy this gap. Children aged 6-14 years of age are enrolled in our centres. We engage local youth from the same village as the centre as our coordinators. Our youth coordinators, conduct a household survey to understand community requirements and incentivize parents to focus on learning levels of children.

Our local youth coordinators are the strength of the model. Being from the same village, the coordinators are aware of each child’s potential and weaknesses and are able to deliver focused and targeted instruction so that no child is left behind. Our emphasis is on flexibility and the centre shifts timings and location to ensure maximum attendance and adapt to pressures of rural communities such as lack of caregivers at home & need for labour during harvest. We use digital resources, newspapers and school textbooks to supplement instruction. All centres conduct monthly tests to track progress. A cornerstone of our model is our monthly meeting with parents and guardians. This allows us to maintain constant contact with families and to track progress. This also empowers communities by engaging them in conversations about the education of their children.

DIGITAL LITERACY

In India’s rural interiors, several young children lack access to computers and digital skills, which are essential in today’s world. Even though mobile phones are available in the family, younger children rarely get access to them for educational purposes. We are currently running three digital literacy centres (one each in Bahraich, Mohanlalganj and Raebareli) to introduce children between 6 – 18 years to computers. Our classes focus on basic skills, such as typing, operating MS Office applications, using the internet and emails etc. to familiarize children with computers.

Our centre coordinators deliver the classes using free education material available online such as videos and typing and other instructional software. The local centre coordinator contextualises the lessons so that children can learn easily. We hold classes in batches of 5-15 students each. ISDC also invites guests from time to time to interact with the children. Due to the high demand for computer instruction in India, we intend to expand the number of computers in our centres and open new centres in other areas.

HEALTH

Rural areas of UP are often characterized by dispersed settlements. This means that those in need, particularly women, may not be able to travel for basic medical healthcare on a weekly or event monthly basis. Further, there is low awareness about menstrual hygiene, which negatively affects health. ISDC seeks to address this gap in our health systems through outreach and awareness building on healthy lifestyles, preventive health and sanitary hygiene. In our community centre in Naugarh, Chandauli, ISDC and Rural India Development Foundation (RIDF – a non-profit trust set up in 2007)

hold monthly health camps, where doctors and medical professionals volunteer to provide basic medical health checkups. Further, ISDC and RIDF jointly hold door to door outreach health drives. Each such activity is followed by a community discussion on health and best practices. Our volunteers also incentivize women and girls, especially in geographically distant tribal areas, about sanitary pad use. The drive is accompanied by distribution of sanitary pads (including some made by our livelihood centre students.)

LIVELIHOOD

Our livelihood training centres offer a 3-month module, delivered in batches of 5-15 women from Below Poverty Line households. Our centre coordinators are women from village settlements, who conduct stakeholder consultations and surveys in their locality to identify products and services needed in local markets. Our students offer cloth mending services, sow mosquito nets during rainy seasons, make leaf plates from forest produce, sanitary pads, masks and other goods and services demanded by locals. The basis of our approach is to enable marginalized women to supplement family incomes, by supplying goods and services, which are in demand in local markets. This enables them to harness the potential of these markets, without the associated costs of transportation/delivery. Our women trainees can continue to work from their homes and gain additional income.